It is generally known in the toy field that remote-controlled vehicles such as cars and the like are controlled by signals to connect or disconnect a driving motor. There are various remote-controlled products, including radio-controlled toys, which can run on or off roads or other paved surfaces. These products are roughly divided into two types, namely, four-wheel-drive vehicles (4WD), in which all four wheels of the vehicles are driven, and tanks or like vehicles which are provided with caterpillars with eight or more wheels which support the vehicle on the caterpillars on the ground.
Four-wheel drive vehicles can run at a high speed because the power of the driving motor or motors can be applied directly to the four wheels which can be keyed to their drive shafts. However, such cars have the disadvantages that they can become stuck because the wheels can sink in soft places or they can slip in sandy or grassy places. Also the four-wheel-drive mechanisms with steering are typically complicated and lose significant amounts of the power being transferred from the motor(s) to the wheels.
On the other hand, vehicle toys such as tanks and the like, which are provided with caterpillars, have excellent ability to run the whole length of unpaved, off-road surfaces, including sand and grass. This ability, however, has been designed for relatively low-speed running compared to the speed of comparable four-wheel-drive and two-wheel-drive vehicles.
It would be desirable to provide a vehicle toy capable of high-speed operation at least like that of the best conventional four-wheel-drive vehicle toys, without the complicated drive, and with the advantages offered by other vehicle toys such as tanks with caterpillars, which have a simple structure and can run off roads such as in sand, grass, and the like, without sticking or getting stuck.